By: steads

steads
Wed, 22 Mar 2017 13:44:20 +0000

Blind Willie Johnson neither suffered bouts of homelessness nor died homeless. Though Dark Was the Night has been defined as a song about lack of shelter (and also included on Voyager with this incorrect interpretation) based on the hymns title. The words to this Easter lament were so familiar to Johnson and his listeners that they had no need of being sung:

Dark was the night, and cold the ground
on which the Lord was laid;
his sweat like drops of blood ran down;
in agony he prayed.

“Father, remove this bitter cup,
if such thy sacred will;
if not, content to drink it up
thy pleasure to fulfill.”

Go to the garden, sinner, see
those precious drops that flow;
the heavy load he bore for thee;
for thee he lies so low.